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Monday, 15 May 2017

Herman Kahn and the New Escalation Ladder

“It is immoral from almost any
point of view to refuse to defend yourself and others from very grave and
terrible threats, even if there are limits to the means that can be used in such
defense”.

Herman Kahn

Alphen, Netherlands. 15 May. Herman Kahn was in many ways
the doyen of nuclear strategy from the 1950s onward. His book On Escalation, charted the journey up an
escalation ladder from peace to annihilation, from political tension to all-out
nuclear war, and the choices states would need to make to realise mutually
assured destruction. Kahn’s ladder had many rungs that began with the analysis
of a threat on the bottom-rung of tension, climbed through political
decision-making, on through diplomatic engagement and crisis management, and
finally reached its ghastly zenith with military action and eventual mass
destruction. Much of Kahn’s focus was on the escalation from conventional
military force to nuclear war. Given that focus I wonder what Kahn would have
made of Friday’s massive ransomware attack, and to what extent would he have
modified his escalation ladder?

My point is this; the development of information and cyber
warfare represent to my mind new rungs on the escalation ladder. Today,
analysis and political decision-making must contend with, and adapt to, new
forms of coercion centred on the three twenty-first century strategic continuums.
These are the balance a state or an alliance must strike between protection and
projection; the relationship between hard and soft power during escalation; and
the complex relationship that now exists between mass disruption and mass
destruction.

Friday’s cyber-attack reinforces the creeping understanding
that security and defence in this century must demand a much clearer, and
frankly much larger, grand strategic continuum that exists between the
protection of society and the projection of influence and power. To a
significant extent Kahn viewed the distinction between protection and
projection as precisely that; a distinction. In other words, for Kahn the civilian
domain mattered in thermonuclear war only in the sense that ‘victory’ would be
afforded the side that somehow preserved remnants of government, governance,
and civil society in the wake of a strategic nuclear exchange. There would be
no winners.

Today, that distinction has become a continuum. A state would
be unlikely to be able to wield to policy effect all the instruments of its offensive
power if its home base is sorely vulnerable to penetration by criminals,
terrorists or states alike, possibly in tandem. This insight necessarily
changes the very nature of the relationship between security and defence in the
twenty-first century, especially given the move towards so-called hyper-war.
Hyper-war would be the first truly total war in which no element of, or person
in a society would be safe. Possibly led by Artificial Intelligence (AI), such
a war would witness Armageddon not only in the form of mushroom clouds, but with
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminators roaming the planet, be it in the form of
macro-systems or micro Nano-technologies! Ouch!

The Danteesque descent from peace to total war would likely
witness a very different form of escalation ladder than Herman Kahn described.
Today, there is a clear continuum established between the mass disruption that
a concerted cyber-attack on critical infrastructures would trigger, and the mass
destruction Kahn considered. That continuum demands of policy-makers and leaders
a far better understanding of the messaging implicit in such attacks, and what range
of responses and escalations they must make available, and the forces and
resources needed to mount credible deterrence and a sound defence.

Russia is fast climbing the new escalation ladder. Moscow
has traditionally emphasised the use of hard military power to exert influence
beyond its borders. This is partly because the use of such power is hard-wired
into the strategic DNA of the Kremlin and Moscow’s security power
ministries. It is also because
traditionally Moscow has had little soft power available to exploit. Unlike
Britain, for example, Russia does not speak English (at least not very well),
did not give the world The Beatles, does not have the BBC, and its football (soccer)
league is rubbish.

Moscow has created a new form of artificial soft power.
Through the use of social media, allied to clever use of strategic
disinformation and miscommunication organs, such as RT and Sputnik to sow
systematic propaganda, Russia has reinforced its impressive offensive cyber
capabilities and burgeoning military might.
It is a soft-hard power strategy that is also enacted from the very top
of the Russian state. In so doing Russia
is demonstrating the ability of a relatively weak power (Russia’s economy in
2017 is less than half the size of the UK’s) to establish game-changing
strategy using field-levelling technologies to exploit the weaknesses of
ostensibly stronger adversaries, whilst offsetting what Moscow regards as their
strengths.

Hybrid war is not distinct from peace and war, and is very
much the junior partner of hyper war at the uber high-end of the conflict
spectrum. As such, hybrid war must be seen as part of the new escalation ladder
that now extends from peace, though uncertain instability, hybrid warfare, crisis
mismanagement, limited conventional warfare, major conventional warfare,
nuclear warfare, and ultimately hyper warfare.
In some important respects Kahn’s ladder has become a toolbox with all elements
of all forms of warfare being used with different levels of intensity at all points
of escalation. Russia gave the world
permanent revolution. It now offers continuous warfare.

Continuous warfare leaves Western leaders facing several
dilemmas. How can they make Western society more resilient and yet remain open
at one and the same time? Given the continuum that now exists between security
and defence, and between criminality, terrorism, and enemy state action, just
how should the total security spend be organised in pursuit of what security
policy objectives? What balance of investments must be made between defence and
offence, and between civilian and military tools and instruments? Above all, can total war lead to total
security and defence, and what price (in all its many forms) would Western society
have to pay for such a defence?

Kahn once wrote, “The final outcome of benevolent, informed,
and intelligent decisions may turn out to be disastrous. But choices must be
made; dies must be cast”. My sense is
that Western leaders are a long way from reaching the informed bit as yet.
Happy days!

About Me

Julian Lindley-French is Senior Fellow of the Institute of Statecraft, Director of Europa Analytica & Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow, National Defense University, Washington DC. An internationally-recognised strategic analyst, advisor and author he was formerly Eisenhower Professor of Defence Strategy at the Netherlands Defence Academy,and Special Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of Leiden. He is a Fellow of Respublica in London, and a member of the Strategic Advisory Group of the Atlantic Council of the United States in Washington.
Latest books: The Oxford Handbook on War 2014 (Paperback) (2014; 709 pages). (Oxford: Oxford University Press) & "Little Britain? Twenty-First Strategy for a Middling European Power". (www.amazon.com)
The Friendly-Clinch Health Warning: The views contained herein are entirely my own and do not necessarily reflect those of any institution.